Evanescent
by Phoenix To Flame
Summary: Vanishing, passing away, fleeting. Tending to be imperceptible. The rain keeps falling.


Attempting to write SeiSub in canon is _hard._ Mostly cause I don't write sociopaths very well. But I hope I did justice to them here.

Song lyrics within are Can't I Even Dream, written by Rockleetist, who's beautiful lyrics are only surpassed by her voice.

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><p><em>Evanescent: <em>

_adjective. _

_1. vanishing, passing away, fleeting. _

_2. tending to become imperceptible; scarcely perceptible._

* * *

><p>It was raining. Cool and bitter and icy, creating puddles of icy reflections upon the earth. One of the things he had learned to hate.<p>

The shards of a mirror littered the floor, glittering coldly. He refused to look at them, or at his bare, _bare_ hands and see the thin lines of blood that marked one of his fits of anger.

_'Hokuto-chan. Seishirou-san.'_

But he leaned his cheek against the chilly glass and watched the rain fall. It at least, created no illusions in kind smiles, or apologized to empty boys sitting and hiding from truths they didn't want to face.

He loved them both enough to die without them, and yet in the shadows of the day, he found a seed of an uglier feeling.

Resentment.

Loathing.

Anger.

He didn't understand why he was feeling those feelings towards the man he ached for, even where the shards of all the lies still jabbed out an insistent message. He didn't want to understand how he could hate his twin, the mirror that was not a reflection at all.

Maybe it was because, even when they'd hurt him with words, what was worse is they left him alone.

Sitting in a window, watching the rain.

_'Seishirou-san, Hokuto-chan.'_

His heartbeat was a painful thing to hear in the determined silence, steady and keeping him alive in a shattered dream.

The year before seemed so evanescent, so fragile. Like that of ruined china holding together through force of memory, crumbling to dust at the slightest breath.

He would lock it away if it prevented the illusion from leaving him alone.

He stood slowly, eyes fixed on an unseen vision. White over black, and the door clicked behind him.

He left his hands uncovered.

* * *

><p><em>Desperate and so lonely, I've looked for you.<br>And left behind all that I had ever longed for.  
>Cold winds scream through my ears like a banshee.<br>A freezing chill- A pain that still will forever haunt me._

* * *

><p>The rain wasn't as cold as his heart, but just as persistent. Studding his cheeks in the waning day, and the streetlights lighting his pale face up into a simile of how he had been, even just a month ago. Smiling for an irrepressible sister and an effervescent man who hourly proclaimed his feelings.<p>

And of course, every word of that changed to a lie in the face of Seishirou-san's words.

But he couldn't let go.

Not yet.

He wasn't cold in the pressing downpour, and yet he curled around himself, wandering through the emptying streets of Kyoto.

There seemed to be a void in his ears, a lack of sound, despite the dulled roar of cars and constant pattering of rain. It took him so many agonizing seconds to realize he was trying to listen for Hokuto-chan to tell him he was being stupid and to come out of the rain.

He'd never considered how impossible he would have felt without her there, and yet he breathed where she did not.

He wasn't even brave enough to end it, find her. Though the thoughts appeared sometimes, how easy it would be to fall back asleep and never wake.

He'd rather sleep for a hundred years than live one more day without his twin.

But he'd promised her that he'd live, and that was the last thing he'd done for her.

* * *

><p><em>Yet I have made it here<br>Running through all the fear.  
>The sadness in my heart retains the pain.<br>And if I fall, I've learned  
>That I may not return.<br>None of my love remains.  
><em>

* * *

><p>The shadows were setting in more firmly, the darkness through the clouds signifying sunset. He stood on a street corner, trying to find his way home. He knew this street all right, had walked it in daylight.<p>

But the darkness made everything different.

_'You know what you are in the dark.' _A very simple statement, and very brutal. In the shadows, no one would see the facade from day to day. In the shadows, all the lies melted away and true faces were revealed.

A car briefly illuminated the street with sweeping headlights, showing off the street signs more clearly. He turned south, _'Birds fly south for the winter.' _his memory helpfully inserted, Hokuto's laughing face as she watched the sparrows flock to him and cover him in tiny claws and feathers.

Another car drove by, hit a puddle and sprayed him. But the rain had soaked him so thoroughly that he didn't even notice the additional water.

Just the cold.

_'You shouldn't be in the rain too long, Subaru-kun. You'll get sick otherwise.' _That was Seishirou-san, when he had been working for hours in the rain, had come home and practically collapsed at the door from cold and weariness. He missed their caring for him, had taken _that _for granted as well as so much else, never wanted to think of their leaving him behind.

That was an unexpected burst of anger there, and resentment. And he felt horrible for it, because it was really all his fault, wasn't it?

The apartment building loomed in the darkness, that and loneliness.

* * *

><p><em>Yet I have made it here.<br>Make this pain disappear.  
>And still I wonder, why can't I even dream?<em>

_Tears fall like a rainstorm I barely see._  
><em>A twisted grin broken within. Am I going crazy?<em>

* * *

><p>The answering machine beeped loudly in the silent space. He leaned on the door, not caring that he was leaving a puddle all over the floor.<p>

Hokuto would have reprimanded him so much, told him off for walking in the rain without covering his head, and not taking an umbrella so that he was drenched, and leaving a pool around where he stood. But her indignant voice did not ring out from the hallway, the kitchenette, anywhere.

He only moved away from the door when the beeping of the answering machine grew too insistant to ignore. He shrugged off the wet shoes, left everything else on and hit the play button sullenly.

_"You have. two. new. messages." _The machine intoned. _"First. message."_

_"Subaru-san, it's your grandmother." _Compared to the mechanical patterns of the answering machine, hearing a living voice and all of its patterns jarred him for a moment. _"I understand that you are not taking on all jobs now, since others can pick up the slack for the easier jobs, but I wish that you would let us know before completing them so we do not attempt to redo your work._

_"Also, it would be greatly appreciated if you answered the phone when I called." _She sounded more uncertain, as if worried that whenever he didn't answer, it was because he had followed his sister. _"Please, be careful. And safe."_

_"To return a call. press. two." _the machine followed. _"To erase this message. press. sev-" _he pressed the button with perhaps more vitriol than needed. _"Next. message." _

_"Are you alright? You haven't called back yet." _It was a little bit...warm to hear concern just for him. Then it was numb again. _"Please call back soon."_ Then it clicked off.

_"To return a call. press. two. To erase this message. press. seven. To save this message. press. nine. To listen again. press. one." _It took him the span of the recording to reach over to the seven button.

The window looked more inviting again, even as the day's light faded to night.

Hokuto-chan used to sit in the window, would tell him of all she saw while he curled up at her feet, took for granted that she would always be there.

The coat left a thin trail of water across the carpet as he leaned his forehead against the window again.

The streetlights shone vainly through the curtains of rain.

* * *

><p><em>Yet I have made it here<em>  
><em>Bearing this love, my dear.<em>  
><em>Bearing the weight of it upon my knees.<em>

* * *

><p><em>The rain fell forever in dreams. He could look anywhere, and not see an end.<em>

_The feeling of broken glass, the feeling of falling petals, the feeling of death._

_Even if the waking body felt them as pain, or scent, or cold, in dreams they were just feelings._

_There was no distinction._

_He wondered if this was how Seishirou-san felt all the time, completely cut off from sensation, from life. If it was so, then he was sad, because it was so lonely._

_But that may have been the difference between them. That he could feel sorrow, and loneliness at the idea of being that shut away, and Seishirou-san just seemed to take it as it was._

_The rain tumbled onto bloody glass, arranged like murdered flowers. Much of his dreaming, when he hurt, was like this now. His grandmother had called a place that you dreamed of when things were stressful in your life was a dreamscape, that it was how your mind arranged itself and tried to fix itself._

_He used to see a field of endless flowers and sunrise. Now it rained onto glass and blossoms. He knew exactly why it changed so drastically._

_"You didn't keep your promise!"_

_The sound was freezing, because he _heard_ it._

_He turned slowly, no longer controlling himself._

_A tree._

_Seishirou-san._

_Hokuto-chan._

_Hokuto-chan wearing his onmyoji robes, looking furious._

_Seishirou-san without his glasses, and with his glass eye, looking emotionless, yet with the smile that so often hinted at darker intentions._

_"You promised you wouldn't take him away!"_

_"I don't know what you mean. You can find Subaru-kun right now. He's in his room."_

_The sakura distorted his sight, yet he still knew what was happening as clear as day._

_"But you've taken his heart away." Her voice was saddened, heartbroken. He remembered the way she called for him, and he couldn't even respond, couldn't wake up from the dream he concealed himself in. _

_The damned wind obscured the sound again, blew the petals harder till they cut into his face._

_"Kill me." There was no more hesitation in her tone. "You must. I know your true identity, you have no choice!"_

_And Seishirou-san stepped forwards, hand drawn back like a sword._

_She didn't even try to stop him, let his hand pierce through her heart, sink through her body._

_And he held her gently, at least he did that much. And although the sound was lost, he wasn't meant to hear this no matter how much he wanted it, he could see her smiling at him, saying something that dropped the killer, the shield from his face._

_At that moment, when she said whatever she did that brought him to the surface, he had never seen Seishirou-san so beautiful._

_But they both faded away, melted into the rain of his mindscape._

_"Seishirou-san!"_

* * *

><p><em>And if I scream your name<br>It's not returned in same  
>I beg, forget me please.<em>

* * *

><p><em>He was still dreaming. He had to be, even though the scene had shifted to his apartment, and the window, because Seishirou-san was there.<em>

_"What are you doing Subaru-kun?" He asked, and it was a dream because there was care in his voice._

_"I'm waiting for you," he replied dully. "You weren't coming before."_

_Seishirou-san seemed perturbed, or maybe just confused, but he couldn't tell through the deep sunglasses he wore. "Why would you wait for me?"_

_He had a feeling he would never be able to say this while he was awake, but it was alright because it was a dream. "I miss you."_

_Seishirou-san apparently took this as the ramblings of fever, because he walked over to him and laid the back of his hand over his forehead. "Why would you walk for hours in the rain and not even try to dry off, Subaru-kun? Your forehead is hot."_

_He shrugged listlessly. "I couldn't handle the silence. And the water was something I could feel."_

_Seishirou-san stood there._

_"I was looking for you. I figured if I wandered around long enough, I would find you. But I'm not in Tokyo anymore."_

_Seishirou-san sighed in consternation. "Don't do such foolish things. I shouldn't be coming here to take care of you."_

_And he smiled, because this Seishirou-san was the right person in his dreams. Not the veterinarian or the assassin, but Seishirou-san. "You shouldn't, you're right. And if I were stronger, I wouldn't be here dreaming of you."_

_His arms were a solid warmth as Seishirou-san pulled him off of the seat and promptly undid the buttons keeping his coat closed, tugging on wet fabric till it eventually released him and fell on the floor with a squelch. He didn't know when he was going to wake, but it was so far the only dream he'd had that wasn't of his sister, or that day._

_Seishirou-san then compounded his impossible actions by sweeping him up in his arms. "You must be sick, or otherwise you would blush and stutter."_

_"I'm not sick, just dreaming. And if this was the only dream I could ever have, I wouldn't want to wake up."_

_He wondered why his dream was being so impossible when Seishirou-san seemed to hold onto him tighter as he walked into his bedroom. And when he laid him on his bed, tried to tuck the blankets in. "It is just a dream, isn't it." He heard Seishirou-san say softly._

_And then he got up to leave._

_He wasn't sure why he did what he did, but he rolled over, almost off the bed to grab for Seishirou-san's coat. "Please don't leave!" He begged._

_Seishirou-san seemed honestly bewildered, but he stopped, walked back to him. Sat down. "I don't want my dream to end with you leaving again." He explained._

_Seishirou-san smiled, actually _smiled_ at him, and lifted one of his hands to his face so that he could feel the warmth of his body. "Sleep, Subaru-kun."_

_The heavier fogs of deeper sleep pulled him away from the dream, but he managed to ask. "Would you stay till I wake up?"_

_He didn't hear Seishirou-san's reply, because the sweet void of darkness swallowed his eyes._

* * *

><p><em>Yet I have made it here.<br>Make this pain disappear.  
><em>

* * *

><p>He woke, alone, again. Yet it wasn't where'd he'd fallen asleep. He'd been in the window, watching the night through glass, watching it fade back into day. And yet now he was in his bed, with the wet coat discarded, and a heavy fabric that was not his blankets over top of him.<p>

He sat up, and the trench coat slid off of his shoulders to pool around his waist. His hands shook as he reached for it, picked it up. It smelled of cigarette smoke, of rain, of cherry blossoms with their underlying taste of blood, of Seishirou-san.

He buried his face in it, shuddered silently. It had cooled, and only had the scent remaining. But it was enough to break the fragile balance he still held onto.

Again, hot sobs ran through him, the sheer grief and desire for him to be there so overwhelming. He felt so _selfish_ to grieve so deeply, and yet he couldn't bring himself to stop.

He clutched the coat tightly and refused to let go._  
><em>

* * *

><p><em>And still I wonder, why can't I even dream<em>?

* * *

><p>The rain hadn't stopped.<p>

* * *

><p>And to explain mindscapes quickly, they actually exist, and you dream of them when you are stressed or worn or upset. Mine's a very comforting library, but I could see Subaru's being a blank field but for cherry blossoms, rain and glass.<p> 


End file.
